


Coffee With Benefits

by wynnebat



Series: The Benefits of Coffee [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Auror Harry Potter, Fluff, M/M, Timeline Mashup, Unspeakable Tom Riddle, and very reluctant temporary barista
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-02-01 00:04:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12692916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: In which Tom gets suckered into covering for Avery and Harry is pretty sure he's hallucinating the whole thing.





	Coffee With Benefits

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Coffee With Benefits (Chinese translation)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13677309) by [RicardoHarasaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RicardoHarasaa/pseuds/RicardoHarasaa)



> Written for a [prompt](https://greenmornings.tumblr.com/post/167238809591/coffee-shop-tomharry-fic-tom-serving-coffee-and) by willowmists.

"I don't actually know how to make coffee," Tom says, not feeling at all ashamed about lacking this specific skill. Honestly, the whole idea is beneath him. He gives the contraption on the counter a look that hopefully encompasses all of his misgivings about this idea, then turns the same look onto Avery.

Avery, who is already halfway out the door. "Tom, you're a 10/10 on the friendship scale. I'll make it up to you, I promise!"

"We're not friends," Tom yells as the door closes.

"10/10 minion overlord, would join up again!" Avery calls back. He doesn't even walk all the way to the outgoing apparition area before disappearing with a loud crack.

Tom glares at the spot where he used to be, but it's no use. At one in the morning, the small coffee shop near the apparition area of the ministry's atrium floor is mostly empty. A few teenagers sit in a corner booth, playing some kind of exploding game that Tom knows he can blame the Weasley twins for, and a few exhausted professionals sit around staring into their mugs and desserts with the horrible realization that their life has taken an awful turn if they're stuck at the ministry this late. Or perhaps that's only Tom. Good god, he does not want to be here, but Avery won't be back for two hours, so Tom decides to make the best of it.

He clears the chalkboard behind the counter with a wave of his wand. There's not a chance in hell he's going to make an effort to learn how to make all of these drinks. Then he picks up a piece of chalk and writes _one-size black coffee_ and prices it at a few sickles higher than the most expensive of the previous options. Maybe potential customers would be properly deterred. He conjures a stool for himself behind the counter and digs out the small amount of non-classified paperwork he's legally allowed to take out of the Department of Mysteries (not that Tom truly cares about the law, but he doesn't want anyone getting a glance of his experimental data) and gets back to what he was doing before Avery floo-called him in a panic and begged him to watch over his shop for a couple of hours.

A throat clears from across from him and a customer asks, "Can I get a large pumpkin and mandrake latte?"

Tom finishes writing his sentence and points to the sign hovering in the air behind him.

"Really?" the customer, a man in his forties, despairs.

"Really," Tom drawls.

"I'm going to complain to the manager."

"I'm sure Avery will care very much about your concerns. In the meantime, would you like a one-size black coffee?"

"Can I at least have milk in it?"

"I suppose," Tom concedes. "You may pour it yourself."

He tries to make it look as though he's doing the process deliberately slowly while he figures out how to make coffee come out of the contraption behind the counter. It's a confusing mix of muggle technology and wizarding spells, and it has the air of something almost ready to blow up in someone's face. Tom hopes it waits for Avery to return, since this night really doesn't need to get any worse. The customer complains about the coffee being burned, but it looks like coffee and smells like coffee and Tom doesn't care about much beyond that.

Of course, that's when the doors open and Harry Potter enters the shop. Tom gets a few moments to observe the man before Harry notices him, and he doesn't like what he sees.

" _Tom_?" Harry exclaims, arriving at the register. "What are you doing here?" He looks terrible, dark circles around his eyes and his auror robes wrinkled and messy as they hang from his frame. Squinting, Harry adds, "Actually, I'm not sure if you're really here or if this a weird dream I'm having at my desk."

"I'm here, unfortunately," Tom replies, beginning to make a coffee. Despite himself, he actually tries to make it somewhat decent. It's the first time he's seen Harry in weeks and Harry doesn't deserve a decent cup of coffee, but Tom doesn't want to be blamed for a man collapsing from tiredness in the shop. "What are you doing here?"

"Working late, it's the Parkinson case," Harry replies, rubbing at his eyes. "Wait, you're really here?"

Tom slides him the coffee. "Drink."

He goes right back to his paperwork, ignoring the sounds of Harry dragging a chair over to sit on the other side of the counter from him. As a deterrent from more customers, it's a good one, but it's not a comfortable one. Tom only glances up when Harry makes an odd noise after taking a gulp of the coffee.

Looking at Tom, Harry opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again to say, "This is the worst coffee I've ever tasted. Including the coffee in the auror break room."

"That's what coffee is supposed to taste like." Aesthetically, one might think Tom would be the type to sip a coffee as black as his soul on the way to work each morning, but he'd realized years ago that the drink offends his tastebuds something terrible. Another point in favor of Tom never stepping behind the counter of one of these places again, not that he's keeping track.

"I guess this is why you never stayed long enough for me to make you coffee," Harry says with a bit of a smile. He chugs the rest down without a grimace. Tom is almost impressed.

"No, it wasn't," Tom lets him know, making Harry another cup and going back to his paperwork. The letters swim by even under his best glare. He could blame it on the lateness of the night, but it's obvious the effect this irritating man has on him.

"Bad joke, sorry." Harry's quiet for a moment before he adds, "Look, I'm, about our thing—"

"It's hardly a thing," Tom replies. When he meets Harry's gaze, he despises the look of confused anguish in it. Merlin, Gryffindors, always taking things too hard. "We had some good nights together. You don't have to apologize or whatever you're trying to do."

"I'm not apologizing," Harry quickly denies. "But… I haven't replied to your owls—"

"There was one owl, don't make it into something it isn't."

"Your one owl, sorry," Harry says, and there he goes with his _I'm sorries_. Apologies hardly get anyone anywhere, but some stupid part of Tom enjoys it anyway. "I got caught up in my work and it's just all been a mess. I've barely left the office this month."

"You could have sent a note," Tom replies, eyebrow raised. "Not that I would've cared either way."

"I didn't know what to say." And it looks like Harry doesn't now, either, because he takes a drink of his coffee instead of continuing. "You were always the one who was good with words, even back at school."

"I don't think we exchanged more than two words at school."

"Doesn't mean I didn't notice." Harry's green eyes are bright with something Tom doesn't want to name. "And I know that was then and this is now, but…"

Tom wants, needs him to stop.

This thing they have, it's easy, uncomplicated. Just two men working off their stress. If they accidentally have conversations in bed afterward, it's a result of the intimacy that sex creates, not anything deeper. And if Tom has had the occasional thought about Harry these weeks that Harry has been gone from his life, it's only because he doesn't want to deal with the pain of having to find another partner whose preferences and schedule fit so easily against Tom's own.

"Look, Tom… it's been so good—"

Harry's interrupted by a shriek from the corner of the shop and Tom's head jerks toward the noise even as he feels something wet hit his chest. And more importantly, his paperwork. One thing at a time, Tom thinks, pushing his fury down. He ignores Harry's apologies for accidentally spilling his coffee all over him—Tom should have never given him that second cup—as he strides to the group of teenagers he'd thought harmless earlier. Whichever one of them had let out the shriek must have been the one to explode green goo all over the section of the shop. Tom ignores their apologies too while he kicks them out and tells them they're banned from the store. The goo takes more time to vanish. Beside him, Harry has stopped talking and just quietly helps with the cleanup.

When Tom gets back to the counter, his paperwork is stained but dry, only wrinkled slightly from the drying charm Harry must have used. He does a similar one on his robes, grimacing at the smell that lingers even after the cleaning charm scours the area that had been hit by Harry's coffee.

It's the middle of the night and Tom has just about had it with the world, but he still looks at Harry and says, "Well? Continue with the _it's not you, it's me_ speech of yours and get out. It's been a long day."

"I'm—"

"I will curse you if you say _I'm sorry_. I heard you the first dozen times."

"I am, though. And I'm not breaking up with you—or, okay, don't say it, I'm not discontinuing our casual sex relationship. Better?"

"I still don't like the use of the word relationship, but go on." If it isn't one, it's going to be the other, Tom thinks, and hates the fact that he cares which option Harry has gone with. That he wants more instead of less. They'd had a perfectly good thing going and now they've both ruined it with feelings. Tom blames Harry.

"Go out with me? I couldn't figure out a good way to say it by owl, but I want something more than just really fantastic sex," Harry says, looking both like he's about to fall over from exhaustion and stupidly sincere.

"You're asking me out directly after ignoring me for a month and then spilling coffee all over me," Tom replies with a huff. "Exactly what answer are you expecting to receive?" But trying to make himself sound stern is proving impossible.

"I could make it up to you. So hard," Harry promises, grinning. "Also by going with you to every pureblood-run place you're going to torture me with."

Tom sighs deeply and calls himself an idiot, but there's no other answer he could give. No other answer he wants to give. "Fine, but you're on probation."

The way Harry pulls him in for a kiss makes him think the man's probation won't last nearly enough. By the time Avery arrives to take over again, Harry is sleeping in one of the booths. It's too early for them to become those boring people who go to bed together without having sex, but Tom still side-alongs him with minimal grumbling and lets the man into his bed. And if he curls in close, it's not like Harry is awake enough to know.

**Author's Note:**

> (Eventually, Tom does learn to make a proper cup of coffee. But only because Harry is otherwise not awake enough for morning sex, of course.)
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm also on tumblr as @[crownwithoutstones](https://crownwithoutstones.tumblr.com/).


End file.
